A publication by K. K. Likharev in IBM J. of Research and Development Vol. 32, pp. 144-157, (January 1988) discloses electronic devices which incorporate conventional tunnel junctions. Conventional tunnel junctions are ordinarily roughly 1 to 5 nm thick in the direction of electron tunnelling. Such thicknesses are comparable to the dimensions of electronic wave functions in the material of the junctions. According to pages 149 and 156 of the publication, the capacitance of leads attached to such tunnel junctions can give rise to problems with respect to observing certain electronic tunnelling effects. It is proposed in the Likharev publication that placing a large resistance close to the tunnel junction might reduce the problem of lead capacitance. However, it is not explained how to accomplish placement of such a resistor in practice. Indeed, it is questioned on page 156 whether or not a suitable resistor can be realized even in principle.
A publication by Fulton and Dolan in Physical Review Letters, volume 59, pages 109-112 (6 Jul. 1987) discloses a complex device having three conventional tunnel junctions connected in parallel to a central electrode mounted on a substrate which is capacitatively coupled to a gold-chromium film of the opposing side of the substrate. A voltage across one of the junctions biased with a fixed current was reported oscillate as a function of a voltage applied to the gold-chromium film.
A publication by Scott-Thomas et al in Physical Review Letters, Volume 62, pages 583-586 (30 Jan. 1989) discloses certain silicon devices having a narrow channel defined in it which is reported to confine electrons in the channel to essentially one dimension. A publication by Meirev et al. in Physical Review B, volume 40, pages 5871-5874 discloses a similar device in GaAs. Irregular oscillations in the conductance of the devices are reported to occur as a function of a density of electrons in the channels. According to the publications, it is necessary for the width and thickness of the channels to be comparable to the electron wave length. Low disorder and high electrical mobility are asserted to be necessary in the articles.